If you are flying into San Francisco today, your flight will almost certainly land later than scheduled.
The Federal Aviation Administration has instituted a ground delay program for San Francisco International (SFO) due to low visibility. Incoming flights are absorbing average delays of 1 hour and 52 minutes.
What's happening
A ground delay program means air traffic control is deliberately slowing down arrivals. Instead of letting planes take off on time and burn fuel circling over Northern California, the FAA holds them at their departure gates across the country.
An estimated 924 flights are affected today. While conditions on the airfield show 10 miles of visibility and calm winds under mostly cloudy skies, approach ceilings and coastal low-visibility patterns frequently force air traffic controllers to stop using side-by-side parallel runway landings. When SFO loses parallel approaches, arrival capacity drops by roughly half.
What this means for your travel
This is significantly worse than a standard bad day at SFO.
Based on BTS data over the last six months, SFO runs an on-time rate of 69.0%. When flights are late here, the average delay is typically 68 minutes. Today's average delay of 112 minutes is nearly double the airport's typical disruption window.
The ripple effect is already spreading across the region. Inbound pipeline health is currently graded as degraded. San Diego International (SAN), which accounts for roughly 7% of SFO's inbound traffic, is also dealing with ground delays.
If you are waiting at SFO for a departing flight, remember that your plane has to land first. An aircraft stuck in a two-hour metering delay in Denver or Phoenix means your departure out of San Francisco will slide backward accordingly.
What to do
- Track your incoming aircraft, not just your flight. Open your airline app and look for "Where is my plane coming from?" If that inbound jet is not yet in the air, your departure time is fictional.
- Act immediately on tight connections. If you are connecting through SFO with a layover under two hours, you are at high risk of misconnecting. Open your airline app now to search for alternate routings through hubs like Salt Lake City, Denver, or Phoenix before open seats vanish.
- Look at Bay Area alternatives. If you are flying regionally along the West Coast and need to get to the Bay Area today, check availability into Oakland (OAK) or San Jose (SJC). Neither airport shares SFO's close-spaced parallel runway limitations.
- Do not leave for the airport early. If your departure relies on an inbound aircraft caught in the ground delay, check the turnaround status before getting in a taxi.
Know your rights
Outlook
With feeder pressure from Southern California and 112-minute average delays already baked into the afternoon schedule, recovery will be slow. Even if approach corridors clear completely, clearing the arrival backlog will create cascading departure gate holds through the late evening rush. Plan for extended turnarounds and rolling delays for the rest of today.